


Arresting

by Arej



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (its not here but idk about the rest of us), Costume Parties & Masquerades, First Kiss, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, New Year's Eve, Other, also i know NYE costume parties might be odd, anyway these two morons are very in love, aziraphale is just being a little judgmental, but all of tadfield is in the background, i have no idea if its an american thing, i only tagged speaking parts, no im not trying to rewrite history why do you ask, they're not really male but it's m/m since i used male pronouns throughout, yes this is set in 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28432305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arej/pseuds/Arej
Summary: After the successfully failed Armageddon, Aziraphale attends a New Years' costume party - but his habit of shopping locally means his costume falls somewhat outside traditional expectations. Crowley wastes absolutely no time making his appreciation known.Written for the GO OTP Prompts event!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 69
Collections: Good Omens OTP Prompts Event Works





	Arresting

_Americans,_ Aziraphale muses, straightening the lapels of his costume, _have some terribly strange traditions._

He picks up the custodian helmet on the counter before him, turning it in his hands. The outfit itself had been easier to source than he’d originally feared - a call and a trip across Soho to a local costumers had proven quite fruitful - although understanding of the necessity for such a thing is markedly more elusive. A costume party for Halloween is only sensible, a continuation of a long tradition of using mummery and misdirection to keep malevolent forces at bay. Costuming for theatrical productions grants weight to the fiction, draws the observer out of reality and into the story.

Perhaps it’s old-fashioned of him, but costumes for a New Years’ party are…odd. Selecting one’s costume by random draw is perhaps even more so, but it’s a new era after the properly failed Armageddon, and he is intent on experiencing all the good things humanity has to offer, odd or otherwise.

He settles the helmet over his cloud of curls, checks once in the mirror to confirm it’s on properly1, and exits the bathroom to rejoin the party.

Beyond the doorway is a crowd of people, most unfamiliar to him, all thoroughly enjoying themselves. Anathema has put together quite the soiree; there are platters of meats, fruits, and cheeses scattered throughout the cottage, interspersed with a number of punch bowls, each offering a different vividly colored, shimmering libation. There is a table in the cottage’s little kitchen dedicated solely to a display of tiny delicate desserts, each more scrumptious than the last - he’s tried half a dozen already, and can account for their quality. Streamers and balloons festoon the ceiling, and glittering tinsel curtains obscure walls and windows alike. The holiday tree in the corner2 glitters from within with warm white lights, and from without due to a prodigious amount of, well, actual glitter.

It seems half the town of Tadfield has turned out for this unusual American New Years’ party. Adam, practically a beacon in his violently red bargain shop devil costume, is prancing about at the head of the Them, who are moving so quickly through the crowds that Aziraphale can’t quite place their costumes. Their parents stand in a small group in the corner, clad in various generic-seeming costumes3, taking turns keeping an eagle eye on the children’s shenanigans and drinking deeply from whichever punchbowl offering they’ve selected. Even the older gentleman that had once given Crowley directions to the airbase4 has a plate in hand, piled with fruit, and is watching the room carefully from under his deerstalker detective’s cap.

But there are non-Tadfield residents here, too: Madame Tracy, dolled up as a flapper; Sergeant Shadwell, in a ragged and abused outfit that seems to be pretending to be a knight’s armor; even Newt, who had driven Aziraphale from London to Tadfield in his car that kept to perfectly normal speeds5, is here in what might conceivably be considered a Templar costume, if one hadn’t known actual Templars.

They are, all of them, every single attendee, perfectly normal-looking, if a bit inaccurate.

Aziraphale is starting to suspect his local costumers was less helpful than he’d originally thought.

He sidles sideways until he reaches Anathema, currently dressed as the sort of witch one only sees on Halloween displays, all pointy-hatted and pointy-shoed, complete with green-and-orange striped leggings under a short black petticoat and even shorter capelet. The look on her face all but confirms his suspicions.

“It’s good to see you again, Aziraphale.” Anathema, unlike at least three other people in his immediate circumference, manages to keep her eyes directly on his, even if the smile she offers is a little wobbly. “I’m so very glad you accepted my invitation.”

“I wouldn’t have dared miss it, my dear,” he replies. The wobble in her smile tilts a little more towards hysteria. “I do hope I’ve judged the costume requirements correctly?”

He has not. Anyone with eyes can _tell_ he has not. Anathema can barely get past a single syllable before the giggling spills out. “You - oh, I’m so sorry, I -”

“It’s quite alright.” He smiles and gestures at the expanse of thigh he is displaying, a barren stretch of skin bracketed on top by incredibly tight shorts, and below by false leather knee-high heeled boots. “I should, perhaps, have known better than to shop locally.”

“Loca-oh,” Anathema swallows another giggle as comprehension dawns. “I’d forgotten, your bookshop is in Soho.”

“It is.” A few of the faces around them go from politely shocked to understanding, and it doesn’t take celestial awareness to recognize that the sudden rush of murmuring is an explanation being passed along the crowd. A tension previously simmering among the party-goers since Aziraphale’s arrival dissipates with the tinkle of laughter from the edge of the room.

“I should have specified - I hadn’t thought. If you’d prefer,” Anathema seems to waffle for a moment, then steels her spine and levels him with a knowing look, “I think I may have some spare trousers your size in the wardrobe.”

It’s an incredibly kind gesture. Aziraphale isn’t entirely certain what she knows about him, or what she suspects, but the look in her eye implies that at the very least she thinks he can do something about the sparse length of his current trousers, given a little privacy and a moment to collect himself - and she’s not wrong; a quick miracle would do the trick nicely.

But he had also spent quite a lot of time standing in front of the mirror in the costume shop’s little dressing area, evaluating his appearance and the ridiculousness of the shorts, especially as compared to the normalcy of the costume’s upper half. He had, perhaps, spent too much time evaluating in that tiny, airless cubicle; the shopkeep had knocked hesitantly on the door frame of the dressing room6 to inquire after his needs and wellbeing with a sort of anxious flutter in their voice. Aziraphale had swiftly changed, completed the purchase, and walked the six blocks back to the bookshop, and promptly had an even longer evaluation in front of his personal mirror.

What he’d said to Gabriel that summer day in the park is still true - he’s soft. Not just spiritually; not just emotionally; he’s soft physically, which he had realized, standing in that stuffy cubicle, is what Gabriel had been criticizing. Frightened, focused on trying to circumvent the Apocalypse without incurring Heaven’s wrath, he’d originally taken the archangel’s judgment as an indictment of his soft spot for humanity, for Earth7 \- but Gabriel’s scorn had been for his choices about his physical form. 

But Aziraphale _likes_ his physical form. It’s served him perfectly well over the centuries, seen him through good times and bad and most recently, apocalyptic - even if he had needed a bit of assistance from Adam to get himself back to rights. It’s a comfortable form, and he’s comfortable in it, and for that reason he’d thrown caution and concern to the wind and purchased the truncated policeman’s uniform. 

Now, he answers Anathema with a smile and a half-laugh that manages to convey appreciation and amusement and resignation all in one. “Thank you, my dear, but I do think I’ll have to - what is that turn of phrase - ‘acknowledge’ my failings, as it were.”

She blinks at him for a second, nonplussed, and the correction comes from behind her. 

“It’s ‘own’ your failings, angel,” Crowley says, slinking around Anathema. “Not that you have an- _ngk_.”

And there is the _other_ reason he’d bought the costume. Crowley’s face flushes red, then scarlet, darkens near to purple, and drains to a stark white all in the span of about four seconds, before an oddly delicate blush blooms and settles gently on the high points of his sharp cheekbones. Aziraphale feels a fluttery sort of thrill tremble through him. 

He’s done that, Aziraphale has, and hundreds, thousands of years of interaction are snapping into firmer focus with every second Crowley cannot tear his eyes from Aziraphale’s legs.

The other reason he’d bought the costume - the other reason he’d spent nearly half an hour staring at himself in a dressing room mirror, and a full afternoon continuing to stare in a more personal mirror as the winter sunlight faded and shadows crept into the bookshop - is this: standing in that airless cubicle, his first thought had been ‘won’t Crowley be _scandalized_ ,’ and then ‘no, he’s hardly scandalized by anything, he’s a demon,’ followed by the shattering thought that, ‘perhaps I’d _like_ to scandalize him’ - which was rather more of a deep, soul-searching revelation than he’d been prepared to have in a poorly lit costume shop dressing closet. The realization about Gabriel’s criticism had been largely inconsequential, compared to that.

He had told Crowley, years and decades ago, that the demon went too fast for him. In the intervening years, Aziraphale has managed to tell himself he’d meant it purely platonically8; that Crowley moved too fast, acted too fast, _drove_ too fast, and Aziraphale, being a creature of habit and comfort, couldn’t possibly keep up. Crowley had, obligingly, slowed down; had let Aziraphale set the pace, right up until Armageddon forced both their hands. Even here in the after, with Heaven and Hell off their backs and the world back to rights, Crowley has kept his proverbial foot off the gas. Very little has changed, since everything changed - they’re free now in a way they had never been before, but still shackled by weight of words exchanged nearly half a century prior.

So standing there, in that dressing closet, fingers plucking anxiously at the frighteningly short hem of the costume trousers, Aziraphale had admitted: he would have to change the pace himself.

“And just what are you supposed to be?” Aziraphale asks, and is thankful that his voice is free and open, uncluttered by the hot, fluttering thing infusing his entire being. Crowley says nothing, although his mouth works soundlessly, until Anathema mercifully intervenes.

“Crowley is _supposed_ to be a burglar,” she offers, which perhaps explains why Crowley is dressed in all black and carrying some sort of sack, but does not explain the cat ear headband or the fact that his costume appears to be a single formfitting piece, and not a trousers and shirt combination.

“Cat burglar,” Crowley chokes out, which appeases Anathema. She flicks one of the cat ears playfully, smiles, and winks at Aziraphale. He has the sneaking suspicion there was some sort of witchy intervention during her random draw9. Crowley is still staring at Aziraphale’s thighs, although in lieu of his mouth, it is now his throat working helplessly, Adam’s apple bobbing at an inhuman speed. 

Adam and the Them zip by, shouting hellos, but they’ve passed by long before their greetings settle into the growing silence. Aziraphale flicks a glance from Adam’s retreating scarlet back to Anathema’s face. She quirks a smile; he answers by lifting a brow. She raises both in response, flicks a non-responsive Crowley’s headband cat ear one more time, and says, “I’ll be back, have to mingle, try the punch,” before disappearing into the crowd. 

Aziraphale stares after her for a moment, feeling outmaneuvered and oddly proud.

“You should arrest me,” Crowley croaks, and Aziraphale whips around to stare at him.

“Pardon?”

“I’ve been…very bad,” the demon answers, and drags his eyes up to Aziraphale’s with what looks like monumental effort. “You should arrest me.” He holds out the empty sack - it has a large stylized dollar sign on it, for some reason - in both hands, wrists up. 

There is a breathiness to Crowley’s voice that is doing altogether unexpected things somewhere in Aziraphale’s gut, as well as scrambling his brain. Crowley’s costume is also rather tight, although disappointingly less so than his own trousers, which are somehow less comfortable than they were moments ago.

“I - I’m not, ah, not authorized to make, well, make arrests.” This is a completely ridiculous response, and Aziraphale shakes himself mentally, although Crowley doesn’t seem to notice. There is an odd sort of movement happening behind the lenses of Crowley’s glasses, as if he is blinking rapidly, which is ridiculous; Crowley hardly ever blinks. 

It occurs to Aziraphale that Crowley hardly ever blinks, because he doesn’t need to - but on those occasions when, say, Crowley is surprised, or pleased, or otherwise thrown off-center, he sometimes retreats to those types of basic human reflexes as a way to steal time to regain his footing. It just doesn’t usually take so long. The feeling in his gut settles from hot fluttering into a sort of molten ooze that, oddly, steadies him. 

“Nowhere to put the cuffs, you see,” he adds, gesturing altogether unnecessarily10 at his lack of pockets, or belt loops, or any such holding device - and Crowley whimpers.

It’s a quiet noise, half-choked and entirely involuntary, and it gives Aziraphale that last bit of courage he’s been needing. He steps close, closer, close enough to lift Crowley’s chin with one hand - he can feel the demon swallow reflexively by the brush of his Adam’s apple against the backs of his fingers - and lowers his voice so only the two of them can hear.

“Now behave yourself,” he murmurs, and it takes all his self-control to keep his voice steady. “Or I really will have to arrest you.”

This close, Aziraphale can feel the shuddering breath the demon releases as he answers, voice holding only a bare shadow of his usual self-confidence. “Thought you didn’t have the cuffs.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Aziraphale promises darkly, and behind the dark lenses he can see Crowley’s slit pupils blow wide in - shock? Excitement? Anticipation? Whatever it is, it’s intoxicating; Aziraphale drops his hand and steps back, and the way Crowley sways with the motion mirrors his own reluctance.

But there is a party to attend, and a witch to scold, and Crowley deserves a moment or ten to get his wits about him, so Aziraphale steps back again, turns, and disappears into the crowd.

Crowley finds him again nearly an hour later, back in control of himself - or at least, when he stares, it’s deliberate this time. He rakes Aziraphale with those concealed eyes, quirks a brow, and offers his hands out, wrists up again. The sack is tucked into a completely unnecessary belt that wraps around Crowley’s middle. “I’ve been very bad,” he purrs, and Aziraphale has to stare very intently at the nosepiece of Crowley’s glasses to conceal his reaction to that. “You should arrest me.”

“I’m off-duty,” Aziraphale manages primly, and is rewarded with a startled bark of laughter. He offers his dessert-laden plate to Crowley and smiles in what he hopes is a flirtatious manner, but possibly comes across as half-mad. “Nibble?”

Across the room, Madame Tracy is studying them with something like approval on her face. Aziraphale waves at her and receives a wave in return, just as Crowley plucks a dainty white petit-four off the plate and swallows it whole, the fiend. Affronted, Aziraphale snatches the plate back. They bicker about Crowley’s poor party manners for ten minutes until Adam comes and drags the demon away.

It is barely a few minutes to midnight when Crowley finds him for the third time, although finds is somewhat of a strong word for it; multiple people pointed the way, often with knowing smiles on their faces, and Aziraphale didn’t bother trying to edge away. It’s not that he’s been avoiding Crowley, exactly, just…prolonging the moment.

He has a plan. _Had_ a plan, concocted in the flat above his shop, staring into the mirror as the shadows draped themselves around him, a plan that was perfect right up until the moment Crowley appeared behind Anathema’s shoulder and set Aziraphale’s heart to fluttering. He’s been trying to pick up the pieces of the plan ever since. Step one was, of course, scandalizing Crowley with his boldness at the party, which went even better than he could have imagined - so well, in fact, that he’s been struggling to wait for step two. So he’s been trying to keep his distance, watching Crowley interact with other revelers from discreet corners, burying himself in crowds of people, and, as a disappointing but essential added precaution, staying away from the refreshment tables11.

But now here they are, a breath away from midnight, and it’s finally time for step two.

“I’ve been _very_ bad,” Crowley murmurs in Aziraphale’s ear, and he takes a moment to savor the demon’s voice, richer and smoother than any delicate dessert could dream. “You should arrest me.”

The sack Crowley has been carrying all night is brought around and dangled in front of Aziraphale; unlike their previous two interactions, it is now obviously bulging with…something. Aziraphale eyes it with what he hopes looks like concern instead of amusement, and fixes a scowl on his face.

“What exactly have you been up to?”

“All sorts of dastardly deeds, officer,” says Crowley, swinging himself around now so that they’re face-to-face. The cottage lights flicker - just one minute to midnight. “As I said, I’ve been very, _very_ bad.”

Aziraphale can practically feel the clock hands ticking along his spine.

“Is that so,” says Aziraphale, and takes the sack from Crowley’s offering hands. A quick glance inside confirms his claims; Aziraphale can see the necklace Tracy had been wearing not half an hour prior, a fancy candlestick, the horns from Adam’s devil costume, and what he suspects is Shadwell’s wallet12. He flicks his gaze from the pilfered contents to Crowley’s smug grin, and fights to hold the scowl in place.

“Well then, this is quite the caper you’ve pulled off. Is that Newt’s watch? And Tracy’s necklace - I’m certain that doesn’t belong in this bag. Which means your possession of these items is, of course, highly illegal.”

“Oh, of course,” says Crowley, crowding in closer. “Absolutely unconscionable, my actions. You should definitely arrest me.”

“And here I am without my handcuffs,” says Aziraphale. He lowers the sack to one side, stepping in until they’re practically nose-to-nose. He can feel his entirely unnecessary heartbeat ratchet up three speeds, as if Crowley has pressed some sort of gas pedal in his chest and revved the human engine controlling his heart. It’s almost loud enough to drown out the excited shrieks of other revelers racing to rejoin their loved ones before the clock strikes twelve. “Well, it is my duty as an officer of the law to see justice done. I suppose I’ll have to improvise. I do have a moral obligation.”

Crowley swallows, almost hesitant now that Aziraphale isn’t backing down, now that Aziraphale isn’t dodging the moment or slipping away or defusing the situation by criticizing his table manners. The wide yellow eyes that are just barely visible behind smoky lenses blink once, twice. Three times. “Is that so?”

The crowd begins to count down. _Ten, nine…_

“Indeed.” Aziraphale brings his free hand up and curls it around the back of Crowley’s neck, and chooses not to comment on the shudder that sends through the demon’s spine. There’ll be time enough for that later. “I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t do this.”

_…four, three…_

“Do what,” Crowley breathes.

_…two…_

Aziraphale kisses him in answer.

_…one! Happy New Year!_

There is shouting in the background, cheering as the crowd packed into Jasmine Cottage toasts and blows noisemakers and congratulates each other on the beginning of a new year, a new day, a new decade, a veritable cacophony of celebration. There are popping balloons and showers of confetti and helpless shrieks of laughter when Adam and the Them, overexcited and full of sugar, accidentally knock over a thankfully mostly-empty table and splatter themselves and their parents with the bare remnants of a bright blue punch bowl. There is the loud ringing of the local church bells carried through the night, and the revelatory strains of Auld Lang Syne coming through Anathema’s speaker system.

And not a single bit of it compares to the fireworks going off in Aziraphale’s head.

Crowley softens under him, yields against him, one hand coming up to knock Aziraphale’s costume helmet askew and tangle in his hair, the other clinging almost desperately to his lapel; he can feel each like a brand, a heat against him, sparking fire in his soul. He drops the ridiculous sack, careless of what other, potentially fragile valuables it might contain13 in order to grip Crowley firmly about the waist and pull him closer. It pulls a helpless noise from Crowley that goes to Aziraphale’s head like so much Dom Pérignon, and his fingers tighten reflexively, bunching Crowley’s costume. 

They’re pressed fully together, as close as any two clothed corporeal forms can be, and it’s still not enough; Aziraphale winds one arm all the way around Crowley’s waist, the other hand palming over the back of his neck, petting the short hairs there with his fingertips. When Crowley makes that helpless, half-broken noise again, he wonders what it might taste like, what _Crowley_ tastes like, so he tilts his head just so and Crowley’s lips part against his, and there, oh, he tastes like champagne and fire, hot and sweet and sharp, and how did they wait so long for this? What other wonders lie in wait here, behind the part of Crowley’s lips, carried on hitched breath and half-broken moans? He nips gently at Crowley’s bottom lip and the demon shudders, shaking in his arms, his hand a tight fist in Aziraphale’s curls.

“It’s about damn time!” Anathema shouts, and it breaks the spell - Aziraphale pulls back, breathless, blinking like someone who hasn’t seen light in decades. Crowley groans and drops his forehead onto Aziraphale’s shoulder, muttering imprecations about witches with bad timing.

Anathema grins unrepentantly at him from across the room, even when Aziraphale levels her with his best scowl.

When he starts to disentangle himself, reluctantly, Crowley lets him go; the demon nudges the abandoned sack on the floor, now empty and deflated14. He himself looks a little deflated, actually, now that Aziraphale is looking - shoulders squaring in that way they do when he’s bracing for disappointment, eyes steady on a fixed point that is somewhere Aziraphale isn’t.

“I’m sorry, Crowley, I think -”

“’S okay, angel. Caught up in the moment, yeah? ’S the done thing, anyway. Won’t hold it against you.”

It takes him a frighteningly long moment to parse what Crowley means, and then another, longer moment where he stares open-mouthed at the demon, who is deliberately not looking and therefore cannot see his shock, and interprets the prolonged silence as something worse.

“Don’t worry about it,” Crowley offers, yanking a fixed smile onto his face, and Aziraphale snaps.

“If you’ll let me _finish_ ,” scolds Aziraphale. Crowley’s head whips up, smile dropping away into something significantly more painful. Significantly more hopeful, as if he hadn’t even considered this option, and is afraid it might not be true. Aziraphale’s heart breaks a little, and his voice softens. “Then you would know I am apologizing for _waiting so long_.”

Crowley gapes at him.

“I do rather think I made a mess of things, back then,” he continues. “What with my - my poor choice of words, and my unwillingness to admit what I was feeling, even to myself. I put us both in a terrible position. It was safest, perhaps, but no less agonizing, I expect moreso for you than for me, if you can still think even for a moment that I might regret kissing you. All I have wanted to do, Crowley, all I have ever wanted to do, is kiss you. Love you. Say to you, and show you, how I love you, the way you’ve been showing me all this time - I’m not an idiot, darling, and you’re not nearly so subtle as you think. I’ve waited so long. Too long. And for that I apologize, but I won’t apologize for kissing you, my dear. My darling. My love. I will never apologize for that.”

The entire room, no, the entire cottage is silent; Aziraphale can hear the winter wind whistling outside, and realizes suddenly how much of a scene he’s just made.

This was _not_ part of step two. He’s handled this all wrong, just like he’s always handled it all wrong - but it’s too late now. He’s seen firsthand how time can so quickly run out, and he refuses to waste any more of it.

“So, if you - if you’re willing,” he says, gathering Crowley’s limp hands in his, “I would like to suggest that we…” 

His courage fails him for a moment, but Crowley’s fingers spasm in his grip. He looks up to see an absolutely ridiculous grin spreading across the demon’s face, and it’s as if the sun is shining right there in Jasmine Cottage, lighting them up with the warmth of deep summer. “Yeah, angel?” Crowley prompts, stepping in. “You have an idea?”

“I think it’s time we move faster,” says Aziraphale, and tilts forward to kiss Crowley again. He manages just the barest brush of lips to lips before they’re interrupted, again, by Anathema.

“Just not in my cottage,” she declares cheerfully, bulling her way forward until she can rest a hand on each of their shoulders. She’s laughing, the crowd is laughing - even Crowley is laughing, although his is something less like amusement and something more like relief, and Aziraphale squeezes his trapped fingers in recognition. And then Aziraphale is laughing, too, Crowley smiling across at him, their grips shifting and adjusting until they’re holding hands, fingers tangled together. 

“Alright, everyone, time to close up, we’ve all had a party and a show, get off home now, all of you,” Anathema cries cheerily, and the crowd starts the coat-and-hat shuffle, shaking hands and clapping shoulders and shooting congratulatory grins over at the duo standing in the middle of the room, holding hands like a pair of lovestruck saps.

Which they are, now that Aziraphale is willing to admit it.

“I’m proud of you two,” she says in a lower tone, clasping both her hands around their joined ones. “It’s not quite how I planned it, but then, I suppose I should know better than to plan with the two of you.”

Crowley quirks a brow at her. “You planned -” he gestures ineffectually with the tangled mass of their hands at Aziraphale’s wildly unexpected costume. “This?”

“Not exactly,” she admits. “You know I didn’t read the rest of Agnes’ prophecies.”

It’s not quite where Aziraphale would have expected the conversation to go, but he nods in agreement; Crowley simply quirks the other brow expectantly. “Well,” says Anathema. “It wasn’t in the prophecies so much as a note she included. A request.”

Newt sidles over then, holding Aziraphale’s coat; he suspects that this part, at least, Anathema had planned. For while Newt had given him a ride to Tadfield and the party - ostensibly because Crowley was fond of being fashionably late to everything, and Aziraphale wouldn’t want to miss the best of the refreshments, but now, he realizes, so that they didn’t see each others’ costumes - Aziraphale suspects Newt isn’t returning to London tonight, and Crowley is his only chance of a lift home.

Or anywhere else he wants to go - fancy that. 

He untangles one hand from Crowley’s to reach for his coat, but Crowley beats him to it, taking it from Newt and holding it open for Aziraphale to step into. The warmth he feels as Crowley slides the fabric up over his shoulders has nothing to do with the coat.

“Agnes had a request?” Crowley prompts, and Anathema smiles.

“More of a demand, I guess. ‘If the matter be not resolved by year’s end, resolve it for them.’ Took me a while to figure out what she meant by ‘the matter’, but I’ve had plenty of practice - the only thing that needed resolving after this summer was the two of you.”

“And the costume? I love you, angel, but I know that couldn’t have been your plan from the start; it wouldn’t have occurred to you to…” Crowley gestures, seemingly tongue-tied, before rallying. “To seek that out.”

“It wasn’t, no,” Aziraphale says, carefully tucking away the thrill of excitement that had lit up his spine at Crowley’s casual confession. _I love you, angel_ \- it had rolled off his tongue like it was something familiar, like it was something easy. _I love you, angel_ , like he’s been saying it for years.

Like he plans to be saying it for years more. 

Aziraphale stuffs down the blooming warmth in his chest and refocuses on the conversation at hand. “I admit to building a plan around it, but the costume itself wasn’t - I didn’t -”

But the costume _had_ , hadn’t it - it had been the turning point, right there in that tiny dressing room, staring at himself in the mirror and thinking ‘I _want_ to see Crowley scandalized, and I want to be the one to do it, and I want to know how he reacts to me like this.’ 

“Wasn’t me,” says Anathema. “I was genuinely surprised.”

“Maybe it was divine intervention,” offers Newt guilelessly as he returns, handing Crowley his coat. All three of them stare at him for a long moment, dumbstruck; something like hysteria bubbles in Aziraphale’s chest. Newt turns a quizzical look on Anathema. “Did I say something?”

_Divine intervention._

Aziraphale looks across at Crowley, whose face is screwed up in consternation, and reaches out to take his hand again; the dismay bleeds from his face at the touch, until the demon is smiling in something like wonder.

Divine intervention, bringing them together. Agnes and the Almighty working in tandem to prod two beings - no. Prod one being into admitting his feelings, so that the other can freely reciprocate.

What an absurd idea15.

“Well,” Anathema says, voice firm, as if she is deliberately choosing not to consider the implications of what Newt just suggested. When Aziraphale glances at her, her face has the sort of fixed determination he knows well - it’s the same look he himself has worn for centuries, any time he’d promised to be the sort of angel Heaven expected, or pushed Crowley away out of fear, or shied away from questioning the Great Plan. It’s odd to see that look on someone else. Odd, and discomfiting; he smiles at her in reassurance, and her answering smile is just a little less tight. “I’m calling it an auspicious start to the new year, whatever it is.”

“You could say it’s ineffable,” Crowley offers, and squeezes his hand reassuringly, lovingly, when Aziraphale stares at him in surprise. Ineffable. It’s said without malice or mockery, without the bite of past arguments or long-running disagreements; that phase of their lives is over, now, here in the after. It’s said gently, like an offering. Like a promise.

Aziraphale’s breath catches in his chest, and it takes a monumental effort not to miracle them both back to London immediately.

Crowley squeezes his hand again, smiling, as if he knows exactly what Aziraphale is thinking. “C’mon, angel. Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1 It is. ^
> 
> 2For it is most certainly Not A Christmas Tree, Anathema had earlier specified to one party-goer, as she is a witch and therefore does not celebrate Christmas, but appreciates the aesthetic of a nicely trimmed tree lighting the indoors during the darkest parts of winter, and Christmas trees have a very pagan history, after all. ^
> 
> 3He spies two woefully inaccurate togas and one laughable angel, courtesy of Adam’s father. ^
> 
> 4While the Bentley had been on fire, though he hadn’t mentioned the issue at the time - Crowley thinks it was out of shock, but Aziraphale suspects politeness, especially now having met him; he’s a very proper sort. ^
> 
> 5Leading Aziraphale to suspect that there is something occult going on with the Bentley. ^
> 
> 6For there was no door, merely a frighteningly short curtain. ^
> 
> 7And even, though he hadn’t dared admit it even inside the safety of his own head, his soft spot for Crowley. ^
> 
> 8In a few _very_ private moments, he had shied from the admission that he’d also meant it romantically, and that he wasn’t ready to leap forward and take the risk that Crowley seemed to be offering, even as the knowledge had battered at the eges of his mind like a persistent moth. ^
> 
> 9If, indeed, it was truly random - and the sheer serendipitous rightness of some of the costumes here tonight - Adam as a devil? His father an angel? Newt and Anathema a Templar and a stylized witch? - is convincing him more and more that it was not. ^
> 
> 10And, with a personally surprising amount of boldness, _on purpose_. ^
> 
> 11Newt has been instrumental in bringing him various plates throughout the night, much to Anathema’s amused exasperation. She, too, has a plan, and neither of the pawns in _her_ plan seem to be cooperating properly, after she went to such lengths to force the issue. ^
> 
> 12All of the contents of the sack have been donated to Crowley’s cause. Well. All the contents excepting Shadwell’s wallet. He hasn’t yet noticed it’s missing. ^
> 
> 13None, thankfully. ^
> 
> 14Even Shadwell’s wallet is back where it belongs, and Shadwell none the wiser. Newt is mildly confused to find the watch he hadn’t been wearing before - Templars didn’t have watches, of course - on his wrist; he must have forgot. He hastily stuffs it in an inaccurate costume pocket. ^
> 
> 15Aziraphale pushes the entire thought, and all its associated tangents, aside. ^


End file.
